Ideas for Educators - Idea Blog

Improve Descriptive Writing with This Highly Engaging Strategy

11/17/2020

Recently, I used a strategy that I originally posted about in 2013. It was a success then and proved just as effective now!

The Slow-Motion Writing Strategy teaches students to expand their descriptive writing by imagining the events taking place in slow-motion.

Ask students to write down the sentence “They sneezed.”
Show this slow-motion video clip of several different people sneezing, while pointing out specific actions students can see happening.
Ask students to rewrite their sentences with more detail.
Continue the process with Slow Motion Flying Cats, Slow Motion Water Balloon, other slow-motion videos. There are dozens of them on YouTube.
If desired, have students videotape themselves doing various actions (throwing a ball back and forth, drinking water). Then replay in slo-mo, asking students to write detailed sentences about what they see.
Ask students to find a short sentence in their own writing that would benefit from more detail. Encourage them to close their eyes and picture the action in slow-motion, then write details into their sentence(s).

Students were highly engaged and remembered the strategy over the course of several weeks. The last assessment showed that student writing was much more descriptive!

DIY Document Camera Idea

9/23/2020

I saw this post last week and finally found time to try it --- and it works! So if you or your paraeducator don't have access to a document camera, or can't use your phone to project, then here is a simple DIY idea. You could also teach students how to do this so that they could show you any handwritten work.

The Secret Answer Strategy

9/21/2020

Increase curiosity and engagement with The Secret Answer Strategy. Announce near the beginning of class that you need a volunteer to “hold” onto the secret answer. If you are teaching in-person, place it into an envelope and seal it shut. If you are teaching remotely, create a Google slide, similar to what you see here, and share the link with a student.

At an appropriate place in the lesson, ask students an intriguing, close-ended question and have them share their thinking. After everyone has shared, direct the volunteer to open the envelope (manually or digitally) to reveal The Secret Answer. Adding this little bit of novelty can increase attention without distracting from your content or taking time from your pacing.

Virtual Classrooms with Embedded Links

5/14/2020

Here's an awesome idea I found on Twitter and am sharing with Amy's permission. How much more engaged will your students be if they are clicking embedded links rather than traditional urls? This idea is so adaptable to any content or grade level. I just found this on Tuesday but am already working on making a few of my own. Thanks, Amy!

Tic-Tac-Toe Menus for Remote Learning

5/5/2020

During COVID-19, tic-tac-toe menus and choice boards are an approach to differentiation that is more helpful than ever. Typically, the teacher creates a 3x3 grid and develops nine activities for students to choose from. Usually the choices address a variety of processes and products, including no-tech, low-tech and high-tech. Students can be directed to choose one of the nine activities or aim for three in a row, as in the game of tic-tac-toe.

Menus can be designed to honor the varying circumstances students find themselves in – limited technology access, outdoor opportunities, home alone or with siblings – as well as their various interests. Choice always increases motivation but can be especially effective when the choices are based on student interests.

Depending on the platform you are using to teach, you might be able to load a tic-tac-toe menu to a collaborative document and have students work in small groups to fill all nine spaces. Better yet, have them create their own tic-tac-toe boards that include different processes and products, and still meet your learning target. Here's a Google Slide template.

Here are a few examples of tic-tac-toe boards that you could tweak to fit your content and students. Even if it isn’t your content area, notice how you can keep the first part of the task and just change the second part. For example, if it reads “Create a rap/poem that informs people about healthy nutritional choices,” you can use the words in red so that you are not starting from scratch. No need to be creative on top of all the herculean tasks you are already preforming!

Accessing Text (options for reading comprehension across content)
https://tinyurl.com/y9y5eqho

Nutrition (specific content example)
https://tinyurl.com/y96p4dy6

A collection of various approaches to choice boards with lots of examples
https://tinyurl.com/y754lwcf

A quick internet search yielded dozens of sites that offer examples. You may find just what you’re looking for, already generously shared by another teacher. Just keep in mind that most were created before remote learning and may require students to have technology or other resources that are unavailable.

The Importance of Chunking for Virtual Instruction

4/22/2020

Are you a memory champion? If not, you are probably like the rest of us – you have fairly good recall when you are attentive and engaged. However, if your mind wanders or you attempt to multi-task or you are anxious, etc., your ability to recall what you are learning diminishes.

Try the following exercise, without scrolling down the page! Give yourself 30 seconds to attempt to memorize the following display of 15 symbols. After 30 seconds, look away and write down as many, in order, as you can remember. Then check your accuracy.

How well did you do? If you got all 15 correct, you may have the makings of a memory champion! You should be quite pleased with yourself. Most of us, though, don’t do all that well. We need our information to be chunked in order to remember it better. Now try the following exercise, with the same approach – 30 seconds to memorize, look away and write down as many as you can.

I’d bet real money on your improvement. When information is presented and studied in chunks, it is much easier to make sense of and remember. This “chunking” is essential for virtual instruction because so many distractions abound. The refrigerator calls, others in the house are making noise, no one is watching, etc. Most experts suggest that virtual lecture should not last more than 3-5 minutes before providing students with an opportunity to process, discuss, retrieve or in some way interact with the information. This is especially important for students who might have a learning disability or attention deficit disorder.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite, simple ways to add processing time with any content:

Silent written reflection
Draw a symbolic representation
Write a one-sentence summary
Create a slogan for our content
Sort info and name the categories
How would your fav celebrity summarize this?
Compose a #hashtag
Create a quiz question and answer

Before your next virtual lesson review your plan and check to see if you have chunked the content, allowing processing and interaction every 3-5 minutes. Not only will you increase your student engagement, you will increase student outcomes!

Co-Teaching in Virtual Times

3/31/2020

My colleague, Sonya Kunkel, and I have created a tip sheet for co-teaching in the virtual world. Please feel free to share it liberally with co-teachers everywhere.

Keep Them Included for Testing!

2/26/2020

While it is common for many old IEPs to have "alternate testing location" listed as an accommodation, research and practice suggest that for *most students this becomes a disadvantage. Listen to this 3 minute interview with two middle school co-teachers as they share their journey into inclusive testing.

*This should always be a decision based on individual needs in varying circumstances. Just as all don't need alternative locations, all may not do well in classroom settings for testing.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cd2ram8dhvb7bhq/Testing%20in%20the%20Inclusive%20Classroom%20Co-T%20interview.mov?dl=0

Improving Thinking Skills through Part-Whole Structures

1/29/2020

Are your students SPLUMPERS? Derek Cabrera, in Thinking at Every Desk, suggests that students need to combine the skills of SPLITTERS and LUMPERS in order to be successful thinkers. Here is how that played out in one of my lessons this week.

The lesson learning target was “I can identify the structure of a text passage to help with my comprehension.” Students have been exploring text structures for several lessons and have been taught the key words that might signal a chronology vs. problem/solution, etc. What we noticed is that some students were getting too caught up in the key words and misidentifying the structure. They were SPLITTERS – looking at the part without looking at the whole.

To help students see the need to look at part and whole, we began by showing them several images – one whole and one a zoomed in part – and had discussion about why it might be important to see both. For example, with a photo of African Stew and a peanut, we were able to talk about peanut allergies as a strong reason to look at parts. With a photo of a chess board, we discussed why the whole picture told a more interesting story than the part. Download images here, if you would like all eight.

Next, we assigned partners, each being either a SPLITTER or a LUMPER. The SPLITTER used wikkistix to circle key workds, while the LUMPER read the whole passage. They then discussed what they noticed and decided which text structure it represented.

We also added gestures and visuals to go along with the thinking process. Download those here.

This concept can be applied to so many things we teach!
"All knowledge has a part-whole structure, and therefore to understand it, we must see the part-whole structure of each and every idea we encounter."
D. Cabrera

Even the U.S. Army considers this work essential!

Teaching Inferencing Skills with Evidence-Based Strategies

12/17/2019

We have a solid evidence base for instructional strategies that enhance inferencing skills. After reviewing the conclusions made by this report, I crafted a scaffolded lesson that focused on two of the strategies – Missing Pieces and. Because of the nature of my work, I combined both of these into one lesson, however each piece should be practiced over multiple opportunities.

Our learning target was “I can draw inferences from text.” We practiced a three-part gesture for “infer” that included the left hand over the face, adding the thinking gesture at the chin and then an “I got it!” gesture at the end. This emphasizes that when making an inference, you can’t see an entire picture so you have to think before making an educated guess. (See photos.)

Missing Pieces
Scaffolded instruction came next. Students were guided in making inferences about

Complete photos
Incomplete photos
Incomplete sentences
Complete sentences

Teacher modeling included asking questions about what they were inferring but also, “How do you know?” “What makes you think so?” and “What life experience is helping you reach that inference?” See photo and sentence examples below. Do as many of these as you feel your students need, adjusting for readiness/grade level.

Yasmine was _______ as her mother tried to comfort her.
The wind was so strong that the tree _______________.
Everyone “oohed” and “ahhed” as the sky lit up but the dogs barked with each loud bang.
In the kitchen, Luis was looking at his feet as his mother held up the broken pieces.

Student Generated Inference Questions
Then we moved to short paragraphs and asked students to read, generate inferences and then turn them into questions. For example, in this paragraph, inference questions might include:

When I got to school this morning, all of the teachers were hurrying around to get us ready to leave. “Did you all put your lunches in the cooler? If you brought sunscreen, please bring it to me.” The teachers are checking their lists and making sure we have everything we need.

Why are the teachers hurrying?
Where are they going?
What will the weather be like?
Will they be inside or outside?
How many classes are going?

To boost engagement, we broke into two teams. Each team generated inference questions and placed them in an envelope. We then swapped the envelopes and had to answer the other team’s questions.

To practice these techniques, you will want to use passages that are complex enough to have inferences at your students’ readiness level, while keeping the vocabulary simple enough to not impede fluency and comprehension.

This hierarchy of practice worked very well for us and we will continue to embed these strategies into other lessons. Knowing that we have an evidence base for this approach makes us confident that we will see student growth with our inference standards.